Last week we looked at various good reasons for wanting to study English literature. I hope now you are convinced that literature is worth studying.
This week we will look at the skills that you need to study literature.
How can you go about studying literature in a way that will bring you the greatest success?
First, you need to recognise the difference between reading for pleasure and reading your textbooks. If you read for pleasure, it does not matter if you have forgotten what you read a month later. You will never need to refer back to particular parts of the book for quotations or evidence to support what you are saying.
Of course, that is not true for the process of studying.
Always have a notebook by you when you are reading. Put the page number in the margin and make notes on whatever is of interest on the page. For a novel or play, you might jot down briefly the key events. It might be that a new character is introduced, or the action shifts to a new location, or that there is some important event, such as a proposal of marriage or a death.